


After All This Time

by deputyhugo



Category: Tuck Everlasting - Miller/Tysen/Shear & Federle, Tuck Everlasting - Natalie Babbitt
Genre: Character Death, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 08:49:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8006368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deputyhugo/pseuds/deputyhugo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a visit to New Hampshire, Jesse Tuck finds that the spring he drank from so long ago isn't the only magic the world contains.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jesse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesse's perspective.

Jesse was having a good decade. He had spent the first half of it in Egypt, working as an archaeologist, and the other half in the Amazon rain forest, studying a variety of animals. It was amazing what people would let you do if you made a fake document claiming you had gone to Harvard. He was a little reluctant to return to New Hampshire at the end of it, but he couldn’t help but feel excited to tell his family about his adventures. Maybe even Miles, who didn’t get excited about anything, would feel a little jealous. 

As he hiked from the airport to his parents’ cabin, he began to talk to his pet toad. “Where d’you want to go next, Toad?” He asked. “We could go back up to New York City, maybe. Or maybe we could try climbing Mount Everest. We haven’t done that one yet! There’s so much to see out there, and we’ve barely scraped the surface!”

His toad stayed silent, as unhelpful as always. 

“Whatever. We can decide later.” He said. “For now, I’ll just focus on the family reunion.”

At last, he reached the little cottage that his parents occupied, rebuilt after the old one burnt down fifty years ago (which was just as well, considering how rotted it had been). He knocked on the door and waited.

Angus thrust the door open. “Jesse!” He grinned. “You’re here!”

“How’ve you been, Pa?” Jesse smiled. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed his father. 

“Oh, pretty well, I suppose.” Angus said. “Your Ma and I are still running the bookstore in Connecticut. We only have a couple more years before we have to sell it to avoid suspicion.”

“Aw! But that’s the best store you’ve had so far!” Jesse complained. “You should stay there, convince people that you don’t age because your store is haunted. It could be your gimmick.”

Angus chuckled as he led Jesse into the living room. “No, thank you. Even if the spring has been paved over, we shouldn’t attract that kind of attention.” 

“Is Jesse home?” Mae’s voice called. She burst into the room, smiling broadly. “Jesse!”

Jesse ran to hug his mother. “Ma! You won’t believe all the stories I have to tell you! I went to Egypt and-”

“I’m sure I won’t believe them.” She interrupted, squeezing him tightly and let him go. “But let’s wait until Miles shows up for that, shall we?”

“Aw, alright.” Jesse said, crossing his arms. 

He surveyed the room, which was even more cluttered than it had been ten years ago. “Well, if I can’t tell you my stories, I might as well go check out the woods.” Mae had a tendency to use her sons as free house cleaning when they were home, and he knew if he stayed in the house for too long, he would end up tidying the whole house. 

“You’ve seen the woods before, Jesse!” Mae shook her head. “Why don’t you spend time with us right now?”

She had a obsessive cleaning look in her eye. Jesse couldn’t stay here a moment longer. “Woods change a lot, Ma. It’s been ten years. I’ll be back in time for dinner.” He gave her a casual salute and backed out the door. 

Contrary to what he had said, the woods looked basically the same as they always had. However, that didn’t make them any less interesting. He strolled through the mess of trunks and branches, searching for the perfect tree to climb. He couldn’t waste his precious time on sub-par trees, even if he was immortal.

At last he found it: the mother of trees. She was huge, an ancient beauty with too many branches to count. Jesse couldn’t resist her. 

He set his backpack and his toad down in a tiny clearing and ran to the tree. Climbing it was a delight, just as he knew it would be. Once he had reached the top, he leapt to a branch of another tree, and then another, racing across the treetops. He only stopped when the sun began to set, and he knew dinner would soon be ready. 

He returned to the clearing to retrieve his backpack and his toad. The bottom of his backpack was muddy. He hadn’t noticed that the ground was wet when he set it down, and now he would have to clean it off later. He huffed in frustration as he scooped it and his toad up and began to make his way back towards the house. 

His toad croaked, a loud, raspy ribbet. He glanced down at it. Maybe it was his imagination, but it looked paler than usual. He clutched it a little tighter and kept walking. 

The toad croaked again, more quietly this time. All at once, he felt it go limp in his hands. He looked down to see it dangling from his fingers, completely lifeless. 

His grip slackened and the toad fell to the ground. “What the hell…” He whispered, crouching down to inspect it. He prodded it with his fingers, but it didn’t move. It was undeniably dead.

“That’s impossible,” he muttered. “Impossible.” 

He had to let someone know about this, someone who knew more about toads than he did. Miles taught school, didn’t he? He ought to know about toads. With shaking hands, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and wrote a text to Miles.

Hey. Are you at the house?

A second later, Miles responded.

Yeah. Where are you? Are you okay? We’re already having dinner.

Jesse’s text must have worried him. Jesse tried to come up with the words to explain what had happened, but he could not quite think of what to say. How did one explain what simply could not be?

I need you to come here. I’m across the lake. There’s something you need to see, and I don’t know how to explain it.

He put his phone back in his pocket and stared at his toad while he waited, as if it would awaken if he looked at it hard enough.

“Jesse! Where are you?” Miles’s voice echoed through the trees.

“Miles!” Jesse replied. “Come here!”

A moment later Miles, tall and sad-faced as ever, came into view. He crouched beside Jesse. “What’s wrong?”

Jesse stared down at his toad. “Miles, look.” He pointed at it, still not sure of what to say.

Miles looked down and furrowed his eyebrows. “What’s wrong with it?”

Jesse shook his head. “I - I think it’s dead.”

Miles snorted. “You’ve had that thing for over a hundred years. If it could die, it would have died ages ago.”

“Miles, I’m serious. Look at it.”

Miles reached out and poked it gently. It did not stir, and Miles shook his head in wonder. “It can’t be.”

“It’s dead.” Jesse said. “It found a way out.”

Miles looked at Jesse, his eyes suddenly intense. “What - what happened to it? What killed it?”

Jesse was a little taken aback by Miles’s change in attitude. “Well, I set it down in this little clearing, and-”

“Show me the clearing. Now.” 

Jesse stood and led Miles to where he had left the toad while climbing trees. Miles bent down to inspect the muddy ground.

“Look for the source of the water.” Miles said.

“What?” 

“The source of the water. The only wet ground is right here, so it didn’t come from rain. The water had to come from the ground.”

Jesse obliged and scoured the clearing for water of any kind. After a minute he found a barely noticeable spurt of it coming out from beneath the roots of a sickly looking tree. 

When he showed Miles, Miles’s eyes widened. “Do you see what this means?”

Jesse had no idea of where Miles was going with this. “We’ve got a nice supply of fresh water? What does this have to do with my toad’s death?”

Miles frowned at him. “How dense are you, Jesse? Your toad was able to die. Toad’s absorb water through their skin, and he was sitting in muddy water from this spring. You know how Pa made up the theory that the spring - the one that made us immortal - is some part of the way the world was meant to be, but wasn’t, and the spring was just leftover from that? Well what if this spring is a part of that too? What if it makes immortal things mortal again?”

“You think it would let us die?” Jesse asked.

“It let your toad die.”

Jesse looked down at the water. It looked so unassuming. “Well, what do we do about that?”

“We drink it!” Miles didn’t sound happy exactly, but his voice was more alive than it had ever sounded before. “Jesse, we’ve found our way out!”

“We’ve got to tell Ma and Pa about it first,” Jesse said cautiously. He wasn’t quite sure how to feel about this sudden revelation.

Miles nodded impatiently. “Of course. We have to do that. But let’s do it quickly” 

They rushed back to the house, where Miles hurriedly explained what they had found. 

Mae began to tear up halfway through. When Miles finished, she burst into tears. “It’s over, then? I didn’t think we’d ever find a way out, but it was right there the whole time.”

Angus put a hand on each boy’s shoulder. He looked as if he might cry too. “We’re finally free, boys.”

Jesse remained silent as he and his family walked back to the woods. He didn’t know what to think. His parents and Miles - they were happy to be finished with life. They were content, ready to stop living. But Jesse - he didn’t feel completely satisfied. Something in him was still hungry for life, and he didn’t think he could die without satiating that hunger. 

They found the clearing and stood around the spring. “Are you all ready for this?” Mae asked, smiling at her family.

Angus grasped her hand. “I think we’ve all been ready for a long time.” 

He and Mae reached down, cupping their hands to collect the water. Jesse watched them raise the water to their mouths, and he almost cried out for them to stop. But it was too late. They had swallowed. 

They stood and looked at each other. Jesse surveyed them, wondering how long it would be until they disappeared. 

“Well?” Mae asked, looking at Jesse. “When does it happen?”

“Maybe Miles was wrong,” Jesse offered, crossing his fingers in hope that it was so. “Maybe I have the wrong toad!” He forced himself to chuckle. “It’s possible, I’m always losing-”

Mae collapsed to the ground, gasping loudly. Jesse and Miles rushed to her side, but she was already gone. A second later Angus collapsed too, and in moments Jesse and Miles had become orphans, staring down at the corpses of their parents.

Jesse looked up at his big brother. Miles’s eyes were glistening. 

“It’s true.” He whispered. “We’re really done.” He knelt and cupped his hands.

“Wait!” Jesse cried. “Wait, Miles. Don’t drink yet.”

Miles stood and looked at him. “What’s wrong, Jesse?”

Jesse tried to conceal the panic in his voice. “Um, well, aren’t you afraid of dying? What if you don’t go to heaven?”

Miles sighed. “Jesse, I don’t care where I end up. I don’t know what’s at the end of the tunnel, but right now, I would rather go to the Devil himself that live for another day.” 

“But-” Jesse felt tears welling up inside of him. “Well, I don’t know if I can drink it.”

Miles’s eyebrows shot upwards. “What?”

“I don’t think I’m ready to die.”

“After all these years, Jesse? You still aren’t ready?”

“I don’t know.” Jesse’s voice shook. “It’s not that I like being alive and alone all the time, it’s just that - I feel like there’s more for me to do. It’s like I’m looking for something, and I haven’t found it yet. I don’t want my life to end while I’m still searching.”

Miles shook his head and stared at Jesse, as if he didn’t know how to respond. Finally, he smiled a little sadly. “Then you shouldn’t drink.”

Jesse was surprised. “You don’t want me to drink?”

“If you aren’t ready to die, don’t die yet. You can drink whenever you please, can’t you?” 

“I - I suppose.”

“I’m going to drink today. Because I’ve lived as long as I’ve needed to. Longer, in fact. Much longer. But you - you’re still full of life. There’s still much more for you to do in this world. Maybe the universe didn’t choose our family to live forever, maybe it chose you. Maybe the world knew you would need more than just one lifetime to do all that you wanted to do, and we were just side effects.”

“But are you still going to drink it?” 

Miles nodded. “Like I said, I’m ready to go. I’m ready to lay my burden down. I want to see my wife again. I want to see Thomas.” He paused, wiping a tear away from his cheek. “Will you - will you be okay without me?”

Jesse looked down. “I think so. I might be lonely, but I can get by.” He looked up. “And hey, if I can’t stand being alone, I can always drink, can’t I?”

“Of course you can.” Miles said. “But promise me two things, alright?”

“Sure.”

“I want you to take some of the water with you - just in case you can’t find it again. I don’t want you trapped here when you had the chance to leave.”

Jesse nodded. “Okay. What’s the second promise?”

Miles smiled. “You don’t have to be alone, Jesse. Find someone to be with. Maybe you can even tell them your secret. Now that the first spring is gone - well, it wouldn’t be so bad if someone else knew, would it?”

“I suppose not,” Jesse shrugged. He looked at his shoes and tried to force back his tears, but they spilled out onto his cheeks anyway. “I - I’m going to miss you, Miles. I don’t want you to go.”

Miles put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m going to miss you too. Don’t take too long, okay?” He chuckled. “Maybe a couple more centuries, but then you better join us.”

Jesse nodded, smiling a little in spite of his tears. “As soon as I find what I’m looking for, I’ll drink. I promise.”

Miles reached out and embraced Jesse, just long enough for Jesse to feel his warmth. Then he released him and bent down to drink.

Jesse turned away. He didn’t want to see his brother die. As Miles drank, Jesse ran from the clearing. He would return soon to give his family a proper burial, but today he couldn’t bear to see their bodies. He didn’t need to be reminded that he was truly and properly alone in the world for the first time in his life.

Jesse went back to the house, which was now eerily quiet. He found a piece of paper and a pen and began to scrawl out the places he wanted to go. Somewhere, in one of those places, he would find what he was looking for. And then he would be with his family once more.


	2. Miles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The same story, Miles's perspective.

Even after all these years had passed, coming to Treegap made Miles feel the same way as always: a little uncomfortable, but a little nostalgic. As he drove down Main Street in his beat up sedan, years and years of memory washed over him. The town had changed completely: the wood was gone and nearly every building had been replaced, yet he still felt an undeniable connection to it, because even though he was not dead and never would be, this was where his life had ended. 

He passed the town and kept driving until he arrived at his parents’ cabin - rebuilt after it had caught fire about fifty years back. They didn’t live there all the time, but they had always held their family reunion there. It just felt right. 

Miles parked his car and jogged up to the door. He hadn’t even knocked when the door burst open and Mae rushed out to give him a hug.

“Miles!” She cried. “You’re home!”

Miles waited for her to let him go before responding. “How have you been?”

“Oh, alright, I suppose.” Mae took his backpack and led him inside. “Although you would know that if you called us more often, wouldn’t you?”

“Sorry,” Miles winced. “I’ve just been busy. I’m moving as soon as I leave New Hampshire.”

“Moving! So soon?” 

Miles chuckled a little. “I’ve been in Middlebury eight years, Ma. At the end of last school year someone commented on how I never seem to look any older. That’s a sure sign that it’s time to leave.”

Mae sighed. “But you liked it there so much.”

“I guess. It was all right. Comfortable, at least. But it’s time to move on.”

“Where are you going?”

“I found a job in the South of Vermont, so I’m heading down there.” Miles sighed. “I’ll be honest, it gets rather tiresome.”

“What, moving all the time?”

“Yeah, that.” Miles shrugged. “I’m tired of the fact that every time I settle down somewhere, I have to leave. I’m tired of the fact that I’m never able to find peace.” He looked at Mae, who shook her head sorrowfully. “But you knew all that.”

She nodded. “Of course. I understand, Miles. Tuck and I will have to leave our bookstore soon, too. But what else can we do?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. I’m sorry for bringing it up.” He looked around the living room, which was as cluttered as ever, if not more so. “Where is Pa, anyway? For that matter, where’s Jesse?” 

“Pa’s gone to town to buy a meal for the special occasion.” Ma smiled. “And Jesse’s out in the woods across the lake.”

Miles rolled his eyes. “Of course he is.”

“He said he’d be back by dinnertime.” Mae said. “Here, why don’t you help me clean up?”

Since Mae had gotten a subscription to Better Homes and Gardens, she had a bit of an obsession with cleanliness, yet it had failed to change her naturally messy habits. As a result, she tried to force her boys to clean up for her whenever they were home. Miles narrowed his eyes. “But I’m your guest, Ma.” 

“If you want to be treated like a guest, you’d call me once in awhile.” Mae huffed. “Now start working.”

The house was in such a state that it took most of the afternoon to tidy it up. By the time they had finished, the sun had dipped low in the sky and Angus had arrived with all the ingredients for enchiladas. 

Miles opted to let Angus and Mae make the enchiladas together without his help, as he was typically a disaster at cooking anything besides scrambled eggs, waffles, and microwave lasagna - and even those were questionable. 

By the time the sun set, Jesse was still nowhere to be seen, and Miles couldn’t help but feel a little bit concerned. Knowing Jesse, being late was a surefire sign that he was in trouble. By the time Mae took the enchiladas out of the oven, Miles was fidgeting with anxiety.. 

“He should be here by now, right?” He asked, checking his watch for the millionth time. 

Angus shrugged, annoyingly calm. “I’m sure he’s fine. He’s over two centuries old, Miles. You can’t always worry about him.”

“He’s still seventeen,” Miles grumbled, not comforted by Angus’s faith in Jesse. He kept worrying as they sat down for dinner. If Jesse had gotten into trouble, he would call. Wouldn’t he?

Halfway through the meal, Miles’s phone buzzed. Jesse had a sent him a text.

\- Hey. Are you at the house?

The text had unusually good punctuation and spelling, at least for Jesse anyway. It made Miles nervous. He shot a text back.

\- Yeah. Where are you? Are you okay? We’re already having dinner.

\- I need you to come here. I’m across the lake. There’s something you need to see, and I don’t know how to explain it.

Miles stomach dropped in fear. Jesse was definitely in trouble, but he didn’t want to alarm Mae and Angus - at least not until he knew for sure what was going on. He stood, trying to betray as little emotion as possible.

“Jesse asked me to go meet him across the lake. Said he wants to show me something.”

Mae looked up from her half-eaten enchilada. “Is something wrong?”

Miles forced himself to laugh. “I doubt it. He probably just found a dead rodent, or a weird rock, or something. You know Jesse.”

He left the house, and the instant the door shut behind him he broke into a sprint. The lake wasn’t terribly wide, and it took him only a couple of minutes to get around it. Once he reached the edge of the woods, he called out.

“Jesse! Where are you?”

“Miles!” Jesse’s voice echoed through the trees. “Come here!”

Miles followed the sound of his brother’s voice, growing more anxious by the second. Finally, he spotted a mess of blond hair topping a ratty green hoodie between the thick tree trunks. Jesse sat with his legs crossed between two pine trees, staring at the ground.

Miles crouched beside him. “What’s wrong?”

“Miles, look.” Not looking up, Jesse pointed to the ground in front of him. 

On the ground lay a toad - Jesse’s toad, which he always carried with him on his adventures. It was oddly still, and it was splayed out in a bizarre position, with its arms and legs extended. Miles had never seen a toad lay like that. 

“What’s wrong with it?”

Jesse shook his head. “I - I think it’s dead.”

Miles snorted. “You’ve had that thing for over a hundred years. If it could die, it would have died ages ago.”

“Miles, I’m serious. Look at it.”

Miles looked closer. He reached out his hand and poked it. Still nothing. His heartbeat quickened, and for a second he found himself unable to speak. When he recovered his voice, he forced out a whisper. “It can’t be.”

“It’s dead.” Jesse repeated. “It found a way out.”

Miles looked at Jesse. “What - what happened to it? What killed it?”

“Well, I set it down in this little clearing, and-”

“Show me the clearing. Now.” 

Jesse scooped up the toad and led Miles through the woods. After a minute he stopped at a tiny spot, barely a meter wide, where the trees parted. The ground was slightly boggy. 

Miles bent down and inspected the mud. He took a deep breath, his heartbeat speeding up inside his chest. “Look for the source of the water.”

“What?” 

“The source of the water.” He repeated, pointing at the mud beneath him. “The only wet ground is right here, so it didn’t come from rain. The water had to come from the ground.”

Jesse nodded, and began to poke around the clearing. After a moment, he called to Miles. “Look!”

Miles went to him. Jesse had found a miniscule spring, so small one wouldn’t notice it lest one was looking for it. 

Miles took a deep breath. His head was spinning. “Do you see what this means?”

Jesse wrinkled his nose, clearly clueless. “We’ve got a nice supply of fresh water? What does this have to do with my toad’s death?”

“How dense are you, Jesse?” Miles frowned at him. His brother was rarely this idiotic. “Your toad was able to die. Toads absorb water through their skin, and he was sitting in muddy water from this spring.” Jesse still looked a little lost, so Miles tried again. “You know how Pa made up the theory that the spring - the one that made us immortal - is some part of the way the world was meant to be, but wasn’t, and the spring was just leftover from that? Well what if this spring is a part of that too? What if it makes immortal things mortal again?”

Jesse’s confusion changed to an expression of vague fear. “You think it would let us die?” Jesse asked. 

“It let your toad die.”

Jesse looked at the water. “Well, what do we do about that?”

Wasn’t it obvious? “We drink it! Jesse, we’ve found our way out!”

Jesse nodded slowly, gradually accepting what Miles had said. “We’ve got to tell Ma and Pa about it first.”

Miles knew Jesse was right, but he couldn’t help but feel anxious at the thought of waiting any more for his long-delayed repose. “Of course. We have to do that. But let’s do it quickly.” 

He led Jesse out of the woods and back to the house, walking as quickly as he was able. The moment they arrived home Miles explained their discovery to their parents.

When he was finished, Mae began to sob. “It’s over, then? I didn’t think we’d ever find a way out, but it was right there the whole time.”

Angus stepped forward and looked Miles in the eye, putting a strong, comforting hand on Miles’s shoulder. “We’re finally free, boys.” Try as he might to conceal them, Angus’s eyes were filling with tears too.

Miles led them back to the clearing, excitement welling up inside him the closer he got. He could feel the excitement radiating through Mae and Angus too - he swore he could hear their hearts pounding in time with his. Jesse trailed behind them, but Miles was too eager to return to the spring to pay attention to his brother.

He burst into the clearing and showed his parents. “Here it is.”

Miles pressed her hands over her mouth, her eyes welling with tears once more. They betrayed a mixture of sorrow, anticipation, and delight. “Are you all ready for this?” 

Before Miles could reply, Angus reached out and took his wife’s hand. “I think we’ve all been ready for a long time.” 

The pair knelt down, reaching out to gather the water in their hands. Miles held back, letting his parents go first. After all, they had lived longer than they had. They needed this even more than they did.

Mae and Angus stood and glanced at each other, slightly surprised to still be alive. 

“Well?” Mae asked. She looked towards Jesse. “When does it happen?”

“Maybe Miles was wrong. Maybe I have the wrong toad!” Jesse chuckled, and Miles thought he detected a hint of fear in his voice. “It’s possible, I’m always losing-”

Before he could finish, Mae crumpled to the ground, clutching her chest and gasping. Miles and Jesse rushed to her side. Miles felt for a pulse, to no avail. She was gone. A second later, Angus crumpled to the ground beside her. Miles stood up and gazed down upon his parents. After all these years, they had finally found their eternal rest. 

Miles bit his lip to keep from crying. “It’s true. We’re really done.” He knelt down and reached towards the spring.

Before he could drink, Jesse called out to him. “Wait!”

Miles looked up at his brother.

“Wait, Miles.” Jesse looked upset. “Don’t drink yet.”

Miles stood up. “What’s wrong, Jesse?”

“Um, well, aren’t you afraid of dying?” Jesse sounded frightened. “What if you don’t go to heaven?”

“Jesse, I don’t care where I end up.” Miles responded. “I don’t know what’s at the end of the tunnel, but right now, I would rather go to the Devil himself that live for another day.” 

“But-” Jesse’s mouth hung open. He didn’t seem to know what to say. “Well, I don’t know if I can drink it.”

Miles raised his eyebrows. “What?”

“I don’t think I’m ready to die.”

“After all these years, Jesse? You still aren’t ready?”

“I don’t know.” Jesse’s voice shook. “It’s not that I like being alive and alone all the time, it’s just that - I feel like there’s more for me to do. It’s like I’m looking for something, and I haven’t found it yet. I don’t want my life to end while I’m still searching.”

Miles shook his head in disbelief. Jesse had lived for more than two centuries, yet he still had the audacity to want more from life. It wasn’t something Miles could completely comprehend. But he did know that Jesse had always been different. He and Miles had always wanted separate things out of this world. And whiles Miles could not understand his brother, he could at least, for the first time in his life, respect his brother’s decision. 

He smiled at Jesse. “Then you shouldn’t drink.”

Jesse furrowed his brows. “You don’t want me to drink?”

“If you aren’t ready to die, don’t die yet.” Miles said. “You can drink whenever you please, can’t you?” 

“I - I suppose.”

“I’m going to drink today. Because I’ve lived as long as I’ve needed to. Longer, in fact. Much longer. But you - you’re still full of life. There’s still much more for you to do in this world. Maybe the universe didn’t choose our family to live forever, maybe it chose you. Maybe the world knew you would need more than just one lifetime to do all that you wanted to do, and we were just side effects.”

“But you’re still going to drink it?” 

Miles nodded. “Like I said, I’m ready to go. I’m ready to lay my burden down. I want to see my wife again. I want to see Thomas.” At the thought of his family, a tear dripped onto his cheek. He quickly wiped it away. “Will you - will you be okay without me?”

Jesse looked at his shoes. “I think so. I might be lonely, but I can get by.” He looked up. “And hey, if I can’t stand being alone, I can always drink, can’t I?”

“Of course you can.” Miles said. “But promise me two things, alright?”

“Sure.”

“I want you to take some of the water with you - just in case you can’t find it again. I don’t want you trapped here when you had the chance to leave.”

Jesse nodded. “Okay. What’s the second promise?”

Miles smiled. “You don’t have to be alone, Jesse. Find someone to be with. Maybe you can even tell them your secret. Now that the first spring is gone - well, it wouldn’t be so bad if someone else knew, would it?”

“I suppose not,” Jesse shrugged. His eyes welled up with tears. “I - I’m going to miss you, Miles. I don’t want you to go.”

Miles put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I’m going to miss you too. Don’t take too long, okay?” He chuckled. “Maybe a couple more centuries, but then you better join us.”

Jesse smiled through his tears. “As soon as I find what I’m looking for, I’ll drink. I promise.”

Miles reached out and held his brother, clasping him tightly for just a second. Then he released him and bent down to the spring.

He heard Jesse’s footsteps retreating behind him. Good. He didn’t want Jesse to have to see anyone else die. Miles filled his hand with water and raised them to his lips, but then he hesitated. He glanced behind him, but Jesse was out of sight.

“Be safe, Jesse. Be happy.” Miles whispered. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.” 

Maybe he should wait to drink. Maybe he ought to stay with his brother, at least for a little while longer. Yet even as he thought this, he could hear voices calling out to him - Mae, Angus, his wife, his son, - all begging him to drink, all telling him that his time on this earth was finished.

Jesse would be okay. He had always been good at taking care of himself, and Miles knew he would find people to take care of him if he needed it. And hopefully, with any luck, Jesse would return to his family soon..

Miles raised the water to his lips and drank. The water tasted wonderful, like the feeling of coming home after a long day and laying down one’s burden. He stood and looked down at himself. He seemed unchanged, and for a moment he wondered if maybe it wouldn’t work on him. Maybe he really was doomed to live on this earth for all eternity.

All at once, he felt his body begin to shut down. Whatever was happening, it didn’t feel natural. It was as if his life - or whatever had kept him alive so long - was being squeezed out of him. The squeezing feeling only lasted a moment, but that moment stretched on so long it seemed like an eternity.

In an instant, the woods disappeared, replaced by a long, brightly lit tunnel. A thousand whispers called out to him, beckoning him forward. They seemed to be comforting him, reassuring him that it was really and truly over. He was finally free.

Miles smiled and stepped into the tunnel. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, he felt pure joy.


End file.
